What if it hasn’t been our learning that is to blame, but the teaching? I don’t mean that we have had poor teachers in the classroom, necessarily.  I mean, what if we have been lacking some of the most important parts of learning…

When we become followers of Jesus, by repenting of our sin, acknowledging Christ as Lord of our lives, believing and trusting in all that he has done for us, we become new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17). This means that our past failures, successes, and even the ways we once defined ourselves - including our work - are reinterpreted in light of the redemption offered by Christ.

When the Scripture talks about fellowship (Greek koinonia), it is not talking about a social club among people who simply meet in a common location, talk about some common interests, and share laughs. Our fellowship is rooted in our common Father, our shared Savior and Lord Jesus, and the One Spirit who abides in us. If we pursue biblical fellowship, we won’t look like the world. 

He invites us today, through faith in Christ and by the Holy Spirit, to live the day with Him. In fact, He wants this sweet fellowship with us. God went to the greatest lengths for us to live this day in His presence.

Remember, discipleship is for every person. And helping others live in light of the gospel doesn’t require a curriculum - it only requires our own personal love for Jesus, dependence on God’s work in people’s lives, and a little bit of practical forethought.

Forgetfulness happens daily; it happens to you and me when we sin. The truth is that in those moments we are forgetting the truth of the gospel. And when we forget, because it’s going to happen, who do we have around us to see us through?

Before I realized it, Lance was showing me how to be a man who pursued God in every aspect of life. He wasn’t just pouring into me when it came to my theological growth but allowed me to see every aspect of his life so that I could get a glimpse of what it meant and looked like to follow Jesus in an authentic way.

If the Holy Spirit is like a fire, the spiritual disciplines are like logs on this fire. To wake up each day and pray, read the Bible, practice silence and solitude, is to add fuel to the fire in hopes that something catches; in hopes that we burn brighter.

We think if we do all the things right, we will get the desired outcome. We want things like our children’s salvation to be something we can control. We want life and all the circumstances in it to be formulaic, predictable. We want guarantees that if we do our part, we will get whatever result we think is best. But most of life doesn’t work that way.

Even on the days when it seemed like He wasn’t listening or at least wasn’t answering, He was there. He knows the beginning from the end. On those days when everything is cloudy and we don’t know up from down, He knows. In our years of prayer, in both our moments of persistence and our moments of doubt, He had a plan. 

But what about Thanksgivings where we just don’t feel very thankful? What about when we are living through trial after trial, hardship after hardship, conflict after conflict? As Christians, disciples of Jesus, what do we do when we can’t seem to be thankful?

These heroes teach us that faith isn’t about having all the answers or never feeling fear—it’s about trusting God in the midst of uncertainty.